Monday, December 12, 2016

Why the Alt Right Exists

Here is one reason in this video:

The video appeared in the feminist Lena Dunham’s Twitter feed here. The video is accompanied by the bizarre title “It’s not the end of men, it’s the evolution of men into better men,” but the video doesn’t talk about “evolution”: it plainly says “extinction.”

There’s something horrific about this video. Replace the word “white” with “black,” or with “Asian” or “Jewish,” and you can see precisely why and instantly. Replace the words “straight white men” with “Jewish men” and you have something that would be applauded by the hardcore Alt Right.

This is a special type of hatred which the cultural left has spawned, and it’s not pretty.

There’s something deeply sick and pathologically unhealthy about a society where a large part of the left can openly call for the death or dying out of straight white men or even white people in general, and then think this is something wonderful.

Imagine if we were in Israel, and we met a cultural leftist, Jewish Israeli, who said: “straight white Jewish men are the problem. They need to die out and be replaced with other men!” That would be a sentiment that any neo-Nazi anti-Semite would applaud.

Or a Black Lives Matter activist proclaims that white people have no right to affirm their life:

How did we come to this? (alas, this is a topic for another time).

But another major issue that is driving the Alt Right is illustrated perfectly by a recent post on the Alt Left closed-group Facebook page (which can be joined here), which can reproduced here:

“‘The increasing immigration to the west from third world countries, combined with low birth rates and the spread of Islam in western countries such as Germany, France, the UK and Netherlands, will ultimately change the fabric of society as we know it. With it, it’s very likely that western values (post-Enlightenment French Revolution values) will die out.’

Do you agree with this? Yes? No? Why?”

No healthy people would wish to be demographically and culturally replaced, whether we are talking of Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Indonesians, Indians, Tibetans, Iranians, Kenyans, Sudanese, or Namibians, or whatever.

Yet we in the West do actually face a demographic problem like this, because fertility rates have in many nations fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1, and our neoliberal elites and the cultural left are in favour of huge levels of Third World mass immigration.

Some people in America – many of whom are libertarians – who realise this and observe the bizarre tidal wave of anti-white hatred on the Left and its extreme Identity politics see no political movement that is speaking about these issues.

If every ethnic minority can have Identity politics, they ask, then why not white people?

So where do they go?

Answer: they gravitate to the rising Alt Right movement.

We can see the evidence for this from one Richard Spencer (who coined the term “Alt Right”), a leader of the movement:

So where did these Alt Right people come from? According to Spencer, about 50–75% of their movement consists of former libertarians. That is quite incredible.

Others in Europe – who are mostly not libertarians, but conventional conservatives or even liberals or leftists – are attracted to the populist right-wing movements or Identitarian movements, because these at least are opposed to mass immigration and are civic/cultural nationalists. (It is important to stress that many of the populist right-wing parties in Europe like UKIP or the Alternative for Germany (AfD) are not Alt Right, however, but civic nationalist conservatives. Not even the French National Front is really Alt Right either.)

Of course, people who gravitate to the Alt Right tend to develop all sorts of extreme and dangerous opinions too: hostility to democracy, support for authoritarianism, neo-Nazism, extreme anti-Semitism, and sometimes even far right ideas about eugenics, but the evidence suggests they mostly pick these ideas up once they get to the Alt Right.

So how do you address the fundamental, serious issues driving the rise of the Alt Right, the Identitarian movements, or populist Right?

Could it be some common sense measures might work, such as the following?:

(1) end mass immigration policies, for the simple reason that they cause increasingly worse economic, social and cultural problems;

(2) end the irrational and pathological anti-white hatred on the left;

(3) end the appeasement of Islamism and stop the Islamisation of the Western world;

(4) recognise the reality that European people do not wish to be made minorities in their own nations, any more than the Japanese or Iranians or Kenyans would want this. There is nothing inherently “racist,” “hateful” or “fascist” about this. It is human nature.

This is the bare minimum of what is needed. An end to neoliberalism would also help, but does not get at the heart of the matter.

However, it seems most of the cultural left will not see reason here. The mainstream Left will need to collapse even further and suffer shattering political defeats before common sense prevails.

And that is where an Alt Left can come to the rescue. It is vitally important an Alt Left movement makes propositions (1), (2), (3), and (4) a sine qua non of its political program. That is how you can defeat the Alt Right and the populist right by breaking their stranglehold over the discussion and concern with these issues, which are very real and not necessarily a sign of some kind of irrational hatred or far right political extremism per se.

To see this, we need only go back to the Old Left well before the 1960s. Does anybody seriously believe that the Old Left, the old trade unions or Old Labour or Social Democratic parties would have been in favour of reducing their own people to a minority in their own nations, and importing people with a highly incompatible culture by the millions? Or that they would have tolerated a bizarre racial hatred against their own people now common on the cultural left?

Answer: no way. And, if we were capable of going back in time and talking to them and explaining what the modern Left has done and become, they would think us mad.

57 comments:

I really very strongly recommend Shelby Steele's slender book of a few years ago, White Guilt.

1-4 are correct, and they sound like possible common ground with the vaguely defined centre right. You'll find few allies amongst the Corbyn crowd or most the Left.

An underlying problem is that a lot of people use politics to define and justify their identity and their moral worth. This is true on the right -- look at Murphy's site for examples -- and increasingly so with the alt-right, but is is overwhelming on the left. That is why the regressive left is so intractable. They *do not care* about policy or being effective; they *do not care* about the consequences of their advocacy.

If the phony-Western values of the Enlightenment die out, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as Christian spirituality is re-embraced. I know it's not PC, but Western civilisation was built on Christian religious values. The decline in the acceptance of the West's traditional spiritual foundations (and that it is godly to uphold these) is the root cause of many of our troubles today.

The Enlightenment was a huge part of what ended feudalism and founded the modern form of scientific inquiry responsible for the industrial revolution and the advances in technology that gives the West the high standard of living it enjoys today.

Why anyone would pine for the backwards and violent days of feudalism, and reject everything we have gained from modern science (and the ideals of democracy and individual freedom that the Enlightenment popularized) is beyond me.

God. With God you have all the answers, and license to impose them. No need for that pesky Enlightenment debate stuff.If you read enough Callahan you realize he wants rule by a priestly elect. He's smart enough to never admit that, but it's clear enough.

The totalitarian regimes of Communism and Nazism were as much a result of Enlightenment ideology as Liberal Democracy is. Also, the Scientific Revolution emerged in a Christian culture and many of its key figures were devoutly religious, and were religiously motivated. I'm not claiming Christian civilisation was perfect, but the belief in Christian spiritual values, rather than the pitiless principles of the Enlightenment, are needed for the maintenance of the West.

Hmmmmm.. "Slaves, obey the earthly masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of your heart as to Christ" (Ephesians 6:5)

Oh, here we go. The Leftist Atheist "Mini Brain" cherry-picking of verses to prove a point that can't be supported. Never mind that there actually are verses that condemn the slave trade, admonish against "Lording it over" others and in one case, even receive a runaway slave back as an equal. Or do a little historical research and learn about a guy named William Wilberforce, maybe?

Then take a class in Biblical Hermeneutics and learn about context so that you understand admonitions to follow the terms of legal contracts [which is what slavery was in that culture] and then learn how slavery was actually carried out in those days:

Plus, if God was opposed to slavery why didn't he show himself in the sky and condemn it? William Wilberforce was a man, his actions are his. So were those of Ivan the terrible who was directly inspired by the old testament.

Plus, if God was opposed to slavery why didn't he show himself in the sky and condemn it

Why should God do that, if it would actually make life worse for some of the slaves [actually "bondservants"] who were trying to feed their families?

Not only that, but slavery in many instances was practiced quite differently than the American chattel system that we anachronistically read back into the text.

And... The Slave trade was condemned in I Tim 1:10. And a runaway slave was commanded to be received back as an equal in Philemon 1:16. By the same guy who told slaves to obey, no less. It helps to look at all the relevant data, instead of cherry-picking only what we want to talk about.

"Christianity isn't primarily based on that". Wasn't Jesus Jewish? Even if it isn't primarily based on it, it's at least partly. It's the same God. It seems strange to me (as someone who's actually agnostic no less) that you talk about slavery being "different" in those times ( you could still beat your slave with sticks) whilst talking about Christians who were against slavery. Indentured servitude is indentured servitude which ever way you put it.

In regards to God making life worse for families trying to feed themselves, I assume you're referring to them having to become slaves by necessity. Who might be metaphysically responsible for that desperation if not God?

Most dyed-in-the-wool Jews I know would beg to differ on that, but that's neither here nor there. His statements are filled with "You have heard it said.... but I say." That simple if you ever actually read it.

It seems strange to me (as someone who's actually agnostic no less) that you talk about slavery being "different" in those times

Because it was. It was - not all but in many cases - entered into voluntarily, for example.

you could still beat your slave with sticks

That's fine if you want to make modern ideas about individualism and freedom the standard of all justice everywhere at all times. But I've actually argued that you can't do that, part of my reason for saying we need to leave Muslims alone.

Indentured servitude is indentured servitude which ever way you put it

Try doing some research, ok?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant

Who might be metaphysically responsible for that desperation if not God

Well I believe in objective morality that exists everywhere at all times (funnily enough so would most Christians.) I don't think it's over intrusive to frown upon people being beaten with sticks in day to day work. I'm trying to be smartass here but It's strange to me that you talk about me advocating "Individualism and freedom" in seemingly black and white terms when you talk about slavery being "voluntary" in those times. That almost sounds like something a libertarian would say.

"Hey, employment in my company is voluntary, if you don't like it, move to that barren wasteland over there that I didn't buy up with tax money before imposing anarcho capitalism."My point is that the people wouldn't have much choice in regards to options/circumstance.

In terms of the Jewish thing, I thought the old testament was important to Christians as well as the new, maybe I don't know the same Christians you do.

"Who might be metaphysically responsible for that desperation if not God

Well I believe in objective morality that exists everywhere at all times (funnily enough so would most Christians

Some might claim they do. In truth, many if not most of them use some form of Dispensationalism to deal with the changes between the Testaments. Example: Polygamy, apparently rampant in the OT but more frowned on in the NT. What we actually believe is that Yahweh is the standard of morality.

At the same time, it needs to be stressed that history should be approached with great humility. On Youtube today I participated in one of those "Trump was helped by the Russians" discussions, which branched off into the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was then appropriately brought up that to the USSR, it was more the US "Turkish/Italian Missile Crisis" that the Russians were responding to.

Now is there a Morality that runs throughout all of that? I think so, but at the same time a little due diligence can go a long way in curbing the tendency to point the finger at other nations, cultures, time periods, etc.

but It's strange to me that you talk about me advocating "Individualism and freedom" in seemingly black and white terms when you talk about slavery being "voluntary" in those times

Not strange in the least. There are certain aspects to Biblical-period Bond-servanthood that are often not appreciated when they get conflated with later forms of the practice. At the same time, there's little doubt it wasn't a bed of roses. At that point, you have to reserve judgment when realizing that we come to such things with a Post-enlightenment lens that tends to worship the individual. That's not jello pudding morality, that's a smart way of reading history.

That almost sounds like something a libertarian would say

Cute how since no genuine Libertarians seem to hang out here anymore, the terms "Libertarian" and "Neoliberal" have become this blog's form of New McCarthyism.

My point is that the people wouldn't have much choice in regards to options/circumstance

My point is that when you point the finger, you often have 3 pointing back at yourself.

In terms of the Jewish thing, I thought the old testament was important to Christians as well as the new, maybe I don't know the same Christians you do

Ask any of these Christians that you know if they would prefer their teenager get stoned to death for disobeying their parents. Oops.

In terms of worshipping the individual, where does Yahweh fit into all this? Does he have any responsibility to the collective?

In regards to differing cultures and history, of course it's important to know what you're on about, but you still haven't explained why it's Ok to beat slaves with sticks. Some cultures simply have some nasty practices. Overarching morality can tell us so by way of reason and empirical experience.

Suppose for the sake of argument dispensationalism was true, you still have to explain why your God would do the things he does. I don't think it's vain or unfair to subject him to scrutiny. Especially since he should be expected to be able to explain himself if he is omnipotent

Let me guess: For you that's the Post-Enlightenment, Post-US Constitution, Post-Internet, current SJW Special Snowflake 21st Century world where there's (presumably) no such thing as moral gray areas - unless of course, you want them to be out of convenience, am I right?

It takes just simply putting your thinking cap on: How much of a developed legal system with Civil Courts, Tort laws, Boards of Labor and uniformed LEO's do you think there actually was back then?

So a guy becomes indebted to you for a healthy sum of money and he also has a wife & kids he's trying to feed. You agree to hire him as a bond-servant for 6 years of hard labor at the end of which his he gets his freedom, his debts are canceled and you give him a small plot of land. We won't go into the fact that the Jubilee laws required that you keep him around for considerably less than that nasty 7th year will allow should it come around sooner than later – which is a better deal for him. But let's say that relations with this employee of yours become strained. He's not working as hard as you feel he can. You guys get in an argument and he attempts to assault you. Or maybe he tried to steal from you.

In our superior modern morality, the only thing that would happen is that you'd call the cops and he'd be fired, and sh!t outta luck as far as his debts and his family are concerned. In ancient times, you went upside his head with a rod, and then once everyone cooled off, back to work. No contracts need be broken and no families need be turned out. The same legal consequences are meted out either way – jail in the latter and physical punishment in the former. Who loses out, here?

Clearly allowing the employer the right to defend himself and discipline those in his service will solve the problem much better than a police officer coming and putting handcuffs on and throwing him in the back of a squad car and eventually a cell, would it not? BOTH of those things – jail and beatings -are physical punishment! Exactly why do you think one is so much better? Especially since more primitive times afforded less options?

But you're all hung up on “Ooooooooohhhh – 'dey beat da slaves wit' sticks!” Well, it appears to me that someone is just looking for an excuse to flunk God on morality, rather than enlarging your paradigm a bit, there.

I can dig out earlier quotes on this blog where I show my contempt for SJW mentality if it will make you feel better.

My point is that God allows an absence of resources such that some people have no meaningful choice over these circumstances. I should also mention I'm talking more broadly about slavery in general and asking why God didn't vocally condemn it by appearing in the sky or shouting from the heavens. I will address your point about the time period and lack of technology with this: why didn't God give access/pointers to better technologies/societal structures earlier on? I'm not talking about utopia, just a little less violence.

What about the times when it was the master who was irrational not the slave? When he was simply in the mood for being cruel? As for looking to "flunk God" why, if he is irrefutable, should I be motivated to do such a thing? Shouldn't he be so awe inspiring that the very idea of "flunking" would seem deplorable and insane to me?

why God didn't vocally condemn it by appearing in the sky or shouting from the heavens

That's the fulcrum of your entire argument. Why does God allow freedom of the will? Why are people allowed to grow, develop, and make choices on their own and have a history. Why aren't they just spoon-fed everything?

What about the times when it was the master who was irrational not the slave

Eph 6:9 Masters, behave in the same way toward your slaves and stop using threats. Remember that you and your slaves belong to the same Master in heaven, who judges everyone by the same standard.

Col 4:1 Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

You talk about antiquity and human progress making things worse before implying you think humans having a history and development is a good thing. This seems contradictory.

"Why aren't they just spoon-fed everything?"

Haha, Ok. So being born into starvation in Africa is being spoon-fed? I told you I'm not asking for utopia. What about God? Is he "spoon-fed" his properties of knowledge, power, etc? This is actually something I'd point at in regards to heaven. Jesus spoke of receiving many times in the next life what you will in this one. What about that? Is that spoon feeding too?

"Why does God allow freedom of the will?"I don't believe in free will. Even if I did, freedom to commit atrocity is no meaningful freedom.

You're not explaining how there were choices in antiquity, you're merely asserting it. This will not do.

Those verses you quoted don't prove much imo. "Treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven"

Define "justly and fairly." Explain how having a "master in heaven" is a choice and not slavery.

So I'm running out of patience to "spoon-feed" you when you seem to be engaging in willful obtuseness against what is plainly obvious to most folks. But are you a parent? Are you married? Do you think it's your responsibility to help those in your care have the best tools possible for discovering how to find truth on their own? And that just giving them things whole cloth will be the actual death pf that person? Do you even understand the concept? If you do then you will understand that at a certain point, your responsibility has borders to it, at the end of which what happens is on their head, not yours.

So being born into starvation in Africa is being spoon-fed

This is playing with semantics and not really helpful to the discussion, so we'll move on.

I told you I'm not asking for utopia

Good. Then you should be able to understand the fact that any given time or place where things are not perfect is not a bad thing. What's bad is when you start pointing fingers at others in other cultures and going "Why are they not perfect like me?"

Jesus spoke of receiving many times in the next life what you will in this one. What about that? Is that spoon feeding too

No.

I don't believe in free will

I do. So there's probably not enough area of agreement between us to even continue with here.

You're not explaining how there were choices in antiquity

Yes, I did. Previous post.

Explain how having a "master in heaven" is a choice

Having one is not. Choosing to live as if there is one, is the essence of freedom itself. It starts with you, though. You must be willing and open.

I don't think I'm perfect. I never said I was. Stop using your spoon to force feed words in my mouth. Ha...ha...ha... For the most part I'm not pointing fingers at other cultures, I'm pointing fingers at God. Not giving people enough will also be the death of that person too. It goes both ways. I don't see why not being raped in a warzone is spoon feeding. Besides, why would the death of that person matter if Yahweh exists. He knows his own. He knows who's going to heaven and hell. Actual spoon-feeding is one of the reasons I think Christian heaven is a very strange concept, everything else considered.

Your quote about perfection doesn't make sense. Things not being perfect is bad, or at least lesser. Of course, the real discussion is what constitutes "perfect."

"This is playing with semantics and not really helpful to the discussion", how so?

"Choosing to live as if there is one, is the essence of freedom itself." With all due respect, are you serious? Lock yourself in North Korea if you think that's a choice. "Oh it's your choice if you're locked in a gulag for disobeying, we ain't cruel at all".

How can I be willing and open if I see no reason to be so? Besides, I believe to some degree I am in having this discussion. I wouldn't bother with it if I thought I couldn't be proved wrong. Why is it that you think we can't continue on the issue of free will? I'm fine with debating it further.

How much of this is mixing debates? Battle of cultures is different in the US vs Europe. Europe is dealing with an extremely different conflict of culture than the US. Even with immigration issues there is a different between US and European open borders.

Changes for immigration under bush have been continued under obama just with more emphasis on Companies hiring and catching people at the border vs the interior. While he has bloated the stats for himself it has also served the dual purpose of providing and identity trail for ilegal immigrants entering.

"A large part of the left" is "openly calling for the death or dying out of straight white men"?

Please define what qualifies as 'large', and then cite the source that statistically supports your demographic claim, please.

To back up such a claim, you need a general estimate of the total of number of people who are on the political left, a general estimate of the number of people who within this group are "calling for the death of the straight white male", and the latter subgroup needs to add up to a size able portion of the former group, not a tiny fraction of it.

Because If you have, say, (in a US-centric example) 30 million leftists in the US, and 10,000 of them are calling for the death of the straight white man, then the claim that "a large portion of the left in the US is calling for the death of the straight white male" would be false, since those 10,000 people add up to less than 1% of the American left--which cannot qualify as a "large" portion of the left by any reasonable definition of "large". Even if all 10,000 put lots of stuff on YouTube and the other 29,990,000 do not.

Exactly. LK keeps ruining his case by making good points about stupidity the left has to avoid and throw out, and then makes massive generalisations without giving examples. And then there's the "destroy Western civilisation" thing.

Please don't give me this crap. Every excuse they get they are attacking the white man. Krugman said trumpism was about white man losing his status and position. Statistics that you are asking for don't exist. Before the left mentions that Trump supporters are racists or alt right is racist please provide the statistics of what the percantages are. How many percent of alt right are racist and how many percent of Trump supporters are racist. What you are asking from LK is rediculous.

Asking for actual evidence to support a claim that is the crux of one's argument is ridiculous?

That's not a 'realist' standard for debate--indeed, you sound just like an Austrian. Or a Young Earth creationist. And you certainly have no grounds now to criticize someone who says a huge portion of Trump supporters are racist. They don't need to provide evidence it's true beyond a few videos on YouTube, after all.

I can find a few YouTube videos of people who say a huge portion of the Left enjoys killing babies, too. I guess it must be true.

You seize on one poorly worded sentence. It would have been better phrased as: "we have a mainstream left in which prominent members of it are filled with a bizarre anti-straight white male hatred and even open call is for the death or dying out of straight white men, and few on the left seem to object to this."

I think your analysis of the situation is accurate and despite our disagreements in some areas, I think the Alt-Left policies you propose would be an enormous improvement over the status quo. However, you must realise that the policies you support would be considered "far-right" by the entire mainstream left and most of the non-mainstream left. They are totally wedded to extreme biological egalitarianism, cultural "anti-racism" which blames Whites for all of the problems of non-Whites, unlimited third world immigration, Islamophilia and regard any preservation of a European ethnic majority in their native homelands as inherently "racist", even "Neo-Nazi". Your cultural/national ideas are more "right-wing" than mild civic nationalists like UKIP and are more or less on par with the Front National. Modern leftists aren't all that concerned with economics and would vote for a neo-liberal multiculturalist before a social democratic cultural nationalist any day of the week.

Agree with the thrust of your post, but would also recognise that self-identifying 'modern leftists' are likely to be a minority of any population. So winning them over isn't as important as putting together a coherent set of principles and policies to appeal to normies. I believe - largely for the reasons set out by LK and other Realist / Alt-Leftists - that a combination of left-of-centre, nationally focussed economic policy and conservative to moderate social policy would have significant appeal to normies. The alt-right is already in this space to a degree, but their right wing baggage will turn many away. There's an opportunity here that the current mainstream left won't touch because they've spent the last 30 years defining themselves around all the post-modern SJW posturing that we dislike.

Look at the superstitious way [for example] the Russian Orthodox have carried out pursuit of marriage and family for their offspring. I had a co-worker who was part of that church who broke off an engagement because of her betrothed's uncle was her "godfather," I believe? It's been awhile?

Or just go rent the Barbara Streisand movie "Yentl" for a better example. The Patriarch of the family calls off an engagement because of a male relative of the girl's fiance' committed suicide. He had the "evil eye!"

The best way to move forward away from these superstitions is open input, painful as that might seem to the idolatry of culture that some want to hold onto.

And whilst we're on the topic of family members choosing whom you might marry, are you willing to take your ideals to their logical conclusions and say no Western interference in Islamic cultures as well?

I did Kevin. Here is the nub of any alleged substance."The best way to move forward away from these superstitions is open input, painful as that might seem to the idolatry of culture that some want to hold onto."That is indeed an argument for immigration. But it's not an argument for MASS immigration, and you present it as if it were.

"And whilst we're on the topic of family members choosing whom you might marry, are you willing to take your ideals to their logical conclusions and say no Western interference in Islamic cultures as well?"

Strange how you throw out B.S. accusations when previous conversations should have made it perfectly clear I oppose Neoconservative wars and regime change in the Middle East.

But do you literally support letting them have ALL their peculiarities, including but not limited to, veiling women and child marriages. No matter how disgusting you might find it, would you be willing to only get them to change by peaceful means?

Jeez Kevin, up your game. I don't give a rat's ass what YOU think, I am talking about the arguments you make. Your arguments must stand or fall on their own regardless of what you think on any topic. This is something I see a lot on Libertarian blogs actually. They make an argument. The argument implies it's OK to starve children. You point this out, and they say "well I don't want to starve children" as if that negated the implication.

Read what I say and make an argument against my actual arguments, or move on. It's as simple as that. I never argued for mass immigration, and you can't point to one place where I ever have. Full stop.

One last time Kevin. 4 is about and only mass immigration. If say immigration to Holland were 12 persons a year there would be no such issue, but if it were 1.2 million a year there would be. We agree? So 4 is about mass immigration. Yet you respond with "backwards" and comments like this, which I quoted above:"The best way to move forward away from these superstitions is open input, painful as that might seem to the idolatry of culture that some want to hold onto."That's an argument against someone who says "No immigration! No new influences! Keep your bodily fluids pure!" But it's not an argument against someone who says "Immigration is good but not sudden mass immigration, especially of low wage low skill workers." An argument for immigration is not an argument for mass immigration

"To see this, we need only go back to the Old Left well before the 1960s. Does anybody seriously believe that the Old Left, the old trade unions or Old Labour or Social Democratic parties would have been in favour of reducing their own people to a minority in their own nations, and importing people with a highly incompatible culture by the millions?"

No. Nobody with any grasp of history would believe it. In Australia, Labor Party leader Arthur Calwell - who said that Australia needed a socialist revolution - remained in favour of the White Australia policy until the late 1960's. Former Labor Prime Minister John Curtin said "This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race."

Among trade union members, open hostility to mass immigration (but not immigrants themselves) was still being openly expressed in conjunction with the rejection of globalism well into the 1980's.

For some time now I have maintained that there is nothing inherently socialist, or even left-wing about support for open borders and mass immigration. These policies serve the interests of international capital, as was so clearly recognised by our forebears on the Left.

"Rosen argues that the mood in the country favored the strong desire to remain neutral regarding European affairs and distrust of anything that smacked of internationalism."

- And that's where you think the US should go with this, eh?

*Old European Socialist states use of Euthanasia to get rid of "undesirables" on the Welfare rolls. Use of End-of-life "Death Panels," however that may be exaggerated or somewhat misrepresented.

*The fact that the Left sees certain protected classes as needing "help," whereas Economic Conservatives "believe" in their ability to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps." This is usually a pretext for talking about how "elitist" the Left are.

So Idk... You want to add exclusion of Chinese Immigrants because of Union rabble-rousing? Good luck with that. All I can see this doing is proving their overall point.

As for me, Compassion is still going to be the "sine qua non" of how Progressivism is done in the real world.

I think my position on this deserves a better explanation than the one-liner I just tossed at you, there. It might be helpful to understand that much of American history has a very racist past with a lot of built-in cushions to protect the Upper-class. At least, most people understand this. For example: Much is made out of the fact that Women couldn't vote. Actually, almost no one could vote unless you owned property. And slavery was woven into the fabric much more than you realize, especially when you consider that the three-fifths clause "allowing the slaveholder interests to largely dominate the government of the United States until 1861":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise

It's also been proven by historian Gerald Horne [among others!] that the US War of Independence had largely to do with protecting the Slave Trade. You can try to dispute that, but at least understand that a) the North was also balls deep profiteering off slavery and b) the reluctant Southern colonies were finally pushed into war with Britain after the latter offered freedom to blacks who defected to come and fight for the Crown.

And slavery was never ended by the 13th Amendment, fyi. An exception clause allowed it to continue as a form of legal punitive action, and of course we all know who's [even today] the disproportionate population of most of the incarcerated.

There's much more to be discussed that time and space constraints will disallow. Suffice it to say that between this and the post of mine above, a picture emerges of a culture struggling to wake up from and shake of the fog of it's racist slumber. A culture that had not "grown up," yet.

And out of that culture you want to try and delineate who the "right and left" were of the day, and claim we can import obvious racial exclusionary tactics without taking their full baggage on board?

Good luck with that. I don't think you've even begun to grasp what it is you're suggesting.

Kevin, I hear what you're saying. We don't want to simply mimic the alt-right on race. Nor do we want to go back to the same attitudes and policies that prevailed in the 1940's. But mass immigration is hurting working class people in all Western nations. Do you doubt that? If we agree that it's a problem, then the challenge for an alternative or realist left is to come up with policies that end mass immigration and divisive multiculturalism without the rancour and underlying Darwinian thinking that drives the alt-right.To my mind, this will involve drawing on ideas from older labour movements and evolving them for use now. Showing the citizenry that opposition to mass immigration has a long history might be part of that.

I guess Jingelic, from my viewpoint we don't really have "mass" immigration in this country, so it's hard to compare. I actually floated the whole thing of Immigrants "taking jobs" and "lowering wages" on a Progressive group on Google that I'm a part of - just to see what response I would get. I got "Raise the minimum wage, create more jobs for infrastructure." I think that's the response you're going to get in the good 'ol USA. Most don't perceive it here as that big of a crisis.

Thanks for your response, Kevin. Do you mean that mass immigration is not that big a deal for self-identifying leftists, or the population more broadly?If you're talking about the mainstream left, I could definitely see that. But from an overseas perspective, I had understood that a big part of Trump's appeal was that he spoke to people's concerns about uncontrolled immigration into the US?

If it's just self-identifying progressives who aren't worried, then I guess that reinforces the need for an alternative left? What do you think?